Everyday, millions of commercial transactions take place between customers and vendors of goods and/or services (xe2x80x9ccommoditiesxe2x80x9d). Many of these transactions are consummated face to face in physical retail establishments, over the telephone, such as with catalog based vendors, through the Internet with e-commerce based vendors or through some combination thereof.
Each of these transactions involves the exchange of value, such as cash/currency, bank draft/check or credit, for commodities. One other commonality that all of these transactions share is the potential that the customer making the transaction is acting fraudulently to acquire the commodities from the vendor.
Fraud often occurs when the customer knowingly utilizes some form of value, such as a bank draft/check or credit card that has no value or does not belong to the customer. For example, a customer writes a check knowing there are no funds to back up that check or utilizes a fraudulently obtained or stolen credit card. While fraudulent transactions only make up a small percentage of the total number of transactions completed at any given time, the amount of revenue and/or resources lost due to fraud is substantial.
Vendors of goods and services rely on a number of different methods to detect fraudulent transactions. Some rely on the fraud detection systems of third party credit card processors or third party check verification systems to determine if the customer is trying to commit fraud. Other vendors rely on internal fraud detection systems. In either case, it is preferable to detect the fraudulent transaction before the customer receives the commodities, prevent the loss to the vendor in the first place and reduce or eliminate the expense of resources devoted to attempting to recover those commodities and/or financial compensation.
An important characteristic of these fraud detection systems is their error rate. Errors include false negative responses, where a fraudulent transaction goes undetected and false positive responses, where valid transactions are mis-flagged as fraudulent. A high false negative rate indicates that the system is not performing its intended function and results in continued losses to the vendor due to fraud. A high false positive rate costs the vendor in potentially lost sales and lost resources in further investigating and validating the mis-flagged transactions.
One typical fraud detection system functions by analyzing parameters of the transaction and attempting to identify characteristics which indicate that the transaction is fraudulent. This system breaks down the transaction into a few select component data parameters and single variable relationships. Points are assigned to each parameter/relationship based on the information it represents and whether it matches with known data. If the number of points of any one parameter/relationship exceeds a pre-determined threshold, potential fraud is indicated. Alternatively, the points of all of the parameters/relationships are summed to create a total score and then that total score is compared to a threshold. If the total score exceeds the threshold, fraudulent activity may be indicated within the transaction. An exemplary fraud detection system utilizing single parameters or relationships to identify a primary fraud characteristic is shown in more detail in U.S. Pat. No. 6,029,154, entitled xe2x80x9cMETHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DETECTING FRAUD IN A CREDIT CARD TRANSACTION OVER THE INTERNETxe2x80x9d to Pettitt.
Another fraud detection system utilizes a more complex predictive model, such as a neural network or other form of model which utilizes self-learning of relationships among variables from historical transaction data. This system uses these complex models to analyze the transaction and predict whether or not the transaction is potentially fraudulent. The model is able to automatically correlate relationships among all of the parameters of the transaction to each other, and not just the single variable relationships of the above detection system. An exemplary fraud detection system utilizing these self-learning models is shown in more detail in U.S. Pat. No. 5,819,226, entitled xe2x80x9cFRAUD DETECTION USING PREDICTIVE MODELINGxe2x80x9d to Gopinathan, et al. Self-learning based systems are complex, difficult to develop and require significant training and maintenance to maintain accuracy.
The present invention is defined by the following claims, and nothing in this section should be taken as a limitation on those claims. By way of introduction, the preferred embodiments described below relate to a method for detecting fraudulent transactions between a customer and a vendor. The method includes receiving a plurality of transaction parameters from the vendor, where the plurality of transaction parameters represents at least one transaction for at least one commodity between the customer and the vendor. A first score is computed as a function of each commodity involved in the transaction. A second score is computed as a function of each of a first one or more of the plurality of transaction parameters. A fraud score is computed based on the first and second scores. The transaction is indicated to be potentially fraudulent if the fraud score exceeds a first pre-determined threshold.
The preferred embodiments further relate to a fraud detection processor. The processor includes a receiver operative to receive a plurality of transaction parameters from a vendor, where the plurality of transaction parameters represents at least one transaction for one or more commodities between a customer and the vendor. The processor also includes a first score processor coupled with the receiver and operative to compute a first score as a function of each of the one or more commodities. In addition, the processor includes a second score processor coupled with the receiver and operative to compute a second score as a function of each of a first one or more of the plurality of transaction parameters. Further, the processor includes a fraud score processor coupled with the first and second score processors and operative to compute a fraud score based on the first and second scores. Finally, the processor includes fraud determination logic coupled with the fraud score processor and operative to compute a determination of whether the at least one transaction is potentially fraudulent based on a comparison of the fraud score and a first pre-determined threshold and further operative to indicate this determination to the vendor.